Description

The YK-Huset Collective House in Stockholm, established in 1939 by architects Hillevi Svedberg and Albin Stark, represents the transition from the Central-Kitchen House model to the Community Settlement model. The basic idea, similar to that of John Ericsonsgatan’s Central-Kitchen House, was to focus on more efficient household management by relying on collective facilities such as a central kitchen and kindergarten to relieve the workload of working women. The YK-Huset Collective House, however, no longer included a dumbwaiter that led to each apartment. Instead, two small elevators connected the central kitchen directly with the hallway of each floor, where meals could be picked up. The typical characteristic of a Central-Kitchen House was no longer present; the individual apartments included fully equipped kitchens.[1]

The Collective Residence was initiated by the Yrkeskvinnors Klubb YK, a club for working women, and was again intended to provide a housing alternative for well-educated couples with children where both partners worked and relied on a collectively run household along with a range of services such as laundry and cleaning.[2] The architect herself lived in the Collective Residence for a period. The ground floor featured versatile collective facilities such as a kindergarten and a central kitchen with restaurant. The restaurant in the YK-Huset Collective House had a very public character, as all residents had a private and fully equipped kitchen in their apartment. Furthermore, a children’s playroom, referred to in some sources as a collective nursery, and a collective exercise room were available to the residents of the 49 two- to four-room apartments.[3] The Collective Residence still exists today, but with fewer shared facilities — though the option to have meals delivered to one’s floor is still in place.

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Originally published in: Susanne Schmid, Dietmar Eberle, Margrit Hugentobler (eds.), A History of Collective Living. Forms of Shared Housing, Birkhäuser, 2019. Translation by Word Up!, LLC, edited for Building Types Online.